Well, Sorcha, I shipped much of my batch #2 to MichaelR, who has a cool smoker and is going to test my theory this weekend. I'm sure he'll let us know how/whether it works.

Smoking the oil doesn't sound like a good idea to me -- not sure why, it's just an instinct. But to answer your last question, with a true cool smoking process, where the heat source is far removed, laterally, from the item being smoked, fire shouldn't be a problem.

Claire